Learning How A Bill Becomes A Law

Well, I’ve learned a lot about how a bill becomes a law on my journey to try to turn the Startup Visa idea into a law. And yes – it’s a lot like how I learned about it on Schoolhouse Rock about 35 years ago.

It’s been a little less than a year since I wrote the post on 9/10/09 titled The Founders Visa Movement. This evolved into the Startup Visa initiative, resulted in a bill in the House (HR 4259 sponsored by Polis (D-CO)) and a bill in the Senate (S. 3029 co-sponsored by Kerry (D-MA) and Lugar (R-IN)). We’ve made steady progress building support and have numerous endorsements, including most recently the American Bar Association and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. In addition, the co-sponsors for the various bills are starting to appear: for example, Udall (D-CO) recently signed on to co-sponsor S. 3029, Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Owens (D-NY), and Wu (D-OR) have co-sponsored HR 4259. I’m also aware of a few more that are about to announce.

In the mean time, I regularly get asked by readers of this blog and supporters of The Startup Visa “what can I do?” At this point, it’s straightforward (but not necessarily easy) – get your Congressperson to sign on as a co-sponsor. At the stage we are at, it’s apparently the most impactful thing we can do get our little bill friend in the Schoolhouse Rock video up off the steps and moving toward law.

Brad – it's been really exciting to watch the progress you (and others) have made here. One of the keys to the process is for passionate individuals to stick with it; I had a friend go through this recently and I'm thrilled that his tireless work resulted in President Obama signing his bill into law:http://tins.rklau.com/2010/08/aviation-safety-law…

Keep at it. I'll call my representatives and will see where it goes. Good luck!

Commenting on the schoolhouse rock video: as we have seen recently, it is often the staff that writes the bill, not the elected representative. We are lucky if the representative even reads the actual bill.

Vivek Chandrasekhar

Brad & All Others Behind The Startup Visa Program: A big thank you to each one of you for your relentless pursuit of this program . After getting tossed around for 3 years figuring out various Visa options, I would be amazed to see something like this coming through. If this becomes law , I bet its gonna unleash a new innovation renaissance in the US. But I hope the crooks will not misuse this program like they did with the H1B. Patiently waiting to see the results of all your efforts . And once again, truly appreciate your efforts .